Closing arguments under way in Philly mob case

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Closing arguments began Thursday in the racketeering trial of reputed acting mob boss Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi and six others, with a federal prosecutor saying the defendants ran their criminal enterprise like a corporation and used threats and violence to grow the business.

“The mob is to the criminal underworld what IBM and GE are to corporate America,” U.S. Attorney John Han told jurors.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno said defense attorneys for the six co-defendants will make their arguments to the jury Friday and Ligambi’s lawyer will get his turn Monday. The jury is expected to begin deliberations later that day.

The investigation stretches back to about 1999, when former boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino went to prison. Prosecutors say the 73-year-old Ligambi has led Philadelphia’s La Cosa Nostra since then.

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Han says testimony from mob turncoats and secretly recorded conversations prove the men on trial are affiliated with La Cosa Nostra. He says the defendants are responsible for a “smorgasbord of crimes” that preyed upon the weak and vulnerable.

The gambling and loansharking case lacks the violence that marked Philadelphia mob trials in previous decades. Even the federal indictment suggests Ligambi has run the mob with a focus on making money, not headlines.

Han, however, said organized crime “could not exist without violence (or) threats of violence.”

“Violence is the lifeblood of the mob. Violence is the source of the mob’s power,” he said. “It is the engine that makes the wheels move.”

The trial started in mid-October and largely revolves around allegations of illegal gambling, extortion and loansharking.

The last big mob indictment more than a decade ago alleged three slayings, part of a period during which more than 30 people were killed in gangland carnage starting with the 1980 execution of longtime boss Angelo Bruno.

The newest incarnation of the city’s La Cosa Nostra capitalizes on its bloody past to control through fear, authorities contend.

Defense attorneys have argued the prosecution’s case was built on fabrications and has no evidence to support the racketeering conspiracy allegations being made. Ligambi’s attorney has argued that not a single real charge in the case would even make an episode of “The Sopranos.”